Lynn b. of our Hollywood Preview crew, went to a screening of a new science fiction/fantasy film.. Here are her feelings about:

FINAL FANTASY: THE SPIRITS WITHIN

There's something pretty appealing in a thinking man's action film featuring hottie gal and guy stars....something for everyone! Of course, you won't have to dream about going to Hollywood and running into leads "Aki" or "Gray" in front of the Chinese Theater. They only exist in cyberspace! Actress Ming-Na (Dr. Chen on t.v.'s "E.R." and the voice of Mulan) voices lead cyber-babe Dr. Aki Ross in the new totally CGI, science fiction/action film Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, based on the popular series of computer games. Ming-Na has her own opinion on the subject. Having seen computer-renderings of Captain Gray Edwards, her love interest, she said "If I weren't married, I'd wanna be dating this guy". Reality check anyone?

It's been 34 years since Earth was invaded by world-wrecker aliens. It is now smashed and desolate. The few humans remaining live in barrier cities. When Dr. Aki Ross goes into a restricted area looking for living things (in this case, a lone plant) she is surrounded by wraith-like aliens and rescued by a band of renegade soldiers called The Deep Eyes, headed by Aki's old flame Capt. Gray Edwards.

Military types like General Hein (voiced by James Woods) are out to use the earth-orbiting Zeus Cannon to blast the asteroid that houses the aliens. Aki and her mentor, Dr. Sid (voiced by Donald Sutherland) believe that this could have horrible ecological effects and perhaps even birth new aliens. They champion a different approach.

Aki is infected with an "enemy within", the alien force which Sid has managed to temporarily contain. In a race against time, Sid and Aki wish to construct a "Spirit wave" from a series of organic specimens whose spirit signatures combined will form a wave that can cancel out the alien force. They have collected six of the eight spirits needed. Together with Gray and his team, who face life-threatening alien terror, Aki searches for the remaining 2 spirits.

Hein, manipulates his forces, sabotages Aki and endangers the planet. Aki finds the last spirit, releases the wave and learns the true nature of the aliens but at a great personal cost. ----------

Final Fantasy represents the first time a film has been directed by the creator of the video games upon which it is based. Overall, Hironobu Sakaguchi does a remarkable job. An army of technical wizards spent nearly four years researching, developing and creating the film at Square Pictures digital shop in Hawaii. I was able to watch an impressive demo describing each step of the meticulous process that brought the "hyperReal" characters to life. The textures of clothing, hair, skin and other surfaces are remarkably "real". While watching the film, an odd thing happened to me. At first, I was aware that I was watching computer-animated actors (several generations above the Shrek-style characters) but, as the film went on, I forgot that Aki, Gray and the others weren't flesh and blood! Hats off not only to the animators, but to all the voice actors who do a great job making the nearly-real, come off as the genuine article. Also, most character relationships are very involving. Ming-Na is very convincing as Aki, Alec Baldwin is stalwart as Gray and Steve Buscemi, although again playing the comic relief character he played in Armageddon, offers some of the best tension-breaking lines. Great actor Donald Sutherland obviously had a great time voicing Dr. Sid. The look of the film is fantastic, if more than a little like the Alien films in both production style and some of the action sequences.

The environmentalist story is rooted deeply in Asian spirituality and was a bit hard to follow. The idea that the earth and all its plants and animals have spirits is very appealing but explaining using this spirit to destroy the alien invaders takes a lot of complicated exposition that might lose some of the audience. Overall, however, you won't want to miss seeing this beautifully-rendered state-of-the-art piece of total CGI filmmaking.

Directed by	Hironobu Sakaguchi and Moto Sakakibara
Screenplay by	Al Reinert and Jeff Vintar from a story by Hironobu Sakaguchi
Starring: the voices of:	Ming-Na as Dr. Aki Ross
	Alec Baldwin as Captain Gray Edwards
	Peri Gilpin as Jane Proudfoot
	Steve Buscemi as Neil
	Ving Rhames as Ryan
	Donald Sutherland as Doctor Sid
	James Woods as General Hein